


shine a little light on me

by emmaofmisthaven



Category: To All the Boys I've Loved Before Series - Jenny Han, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: F/M, High School Reunion, MASSIVE SPOILERS for book 3 you've been warned, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-31
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-07-05 01:56:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15853872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmaofmisthaven/pseuds/emmaofmisthaven
Summary: People are like ivy, Lara Jean decides, they grow in unexpected directions when you don’t cater to them for so long.(Or, it's been 10 years, and a high school reunion is in order.)





	shine a little light on me

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not the slightest bit kidding when I'm saying that this contains massive spoilers for the third book, even though the fic is a mix of bookverse and movieverse. So please do yourself a favour and read the books first if you don't want to be spoiled!
> 
> I can't warn you more than this at this point!

Lara Jean didn’t plan on going.

She received the invitation and quickly dismissed it, never to be seen again. She doesn’t need a formal evening to meet with people from high school – she kept in touch with a few people, visit Lucas in New York every so often, Skype with Chris when she’s in a place with good enough Wifi for a video call, and even manages a half-decent friendship with Josh. Everyone else, well. That’s that.

Surprisingly, though, Chris is the one who convinces her to go. She’s visiting her mother like she does once in a blue moon – absence makes the heart grows fonder, but still Chris and her mother can only tolerate each other under the same roof for so long – and it so happens that she will be in Virginia when their high school reunion happens.

People are like ivy, Lara Jean decides, they grow in unexpected directions when you don’t cater to them for so long. Still, if Chris wants to brag to all their high school promotion about what a cool woman she’s become, Lara Jean might want to be here for the ride. There is something very Genievere about it, not that she would ever tell her best friend that, not if she wants to stay alive.

So Lara Jean packs an overnight bag, and somehow convinces Kitty to come and pick her with promises of freshly baked cookies, mani-pedis and a  _ Sopranos _ binge-watch session. Kitty must miss her times eleven, because she shows up on time, Lara Jean’s favourite playlist playing in the car, and a grin on her face.

It still feels weird, going back to their childhood house after all these years. Everything is still basically the same, without Trina’s dog who passed away a few years ago. Same old kitchen – cleaner now that Lara Jean doesn’t invade it at three am for stress-baking – and same old bedrooms. A lot of things have changed in her life since high school, but her bedroom is a shrine to her seventeen-year-old self. Pictures and posters on the walls, clothes in the wardrobe, even the old teddy bear on her bed; everything speaks of a Lara Jean she hasn’t been in a long time, a teenage girl with thoughts of true love, Gilbert Blythe and perfect chocolate chip cookies.

Sleeping in her old bed feels like travelling back in time and, when she closes her eyes, she almost wonders if Chris will climb her window with complains about her mother and invitations to this party or that concert. But the house is quiet, and Lara Jean falls asleep to the rhythm of her own fast-paced beating heart.

She spends the day with Kitty, home from college now that her finals are over, and there is something so delightfully comforting about this. They watch tv and bicker endlessly, Skype with Margot all the way from London in the middle of the afternoon, and then Kitty is braiding her hair and criticising her outfit choices and otherwise helping her get ready for tonight’s party. 

They’re still arguing over pink or red nail polish by the time Lara Jean goes downstairs and puts her shoes on, Kitty following her like she has a bone to pick. That’s how she knows a little sister missed her – Kitty’s way of showing affection is to just shadow her around the house until Lara Jean wants to strangle her. Cute, but annoying.

Two honks from outside startles them both into silence, before Lara Jean rushes out of the house. Chris is waiting for her in her mother’s old car, window down so she can lean her arm against the frame.

“Yo, beotch!” she all but yells, to which Lara Jean rolls her eyes.

“Be louder,” she replies even as she makes her way toward the passenger side of the car. “You haven’t woken up all the neighbours yet.”

“Sorry, Mrs Sanderson!” Chris yells, even louder, for the heck of it.

She’s still laughing at her own nonsense when she pulls Lara Jean into a tight hug. It feels weird, having a real-life Chris by her side all over again, instead of just a grainy, pixelated version of her on her computer. She’s all lean muscles, sea-and-salt-bleached blonde hair and kohl-rimmed eyes these days, with a sleeve full of tattoos and so many more on the other arm, the legs, even between her boobs. South America did her well, that one is for sure, with the yoga school she opened on some paradisiac island full of tourists. This version of Chris is the best, calm and peaceful but still with that old fire ready to be ignited again.

They start catching up on the small journey to school, the conversation seamless even as Chris finds a free parking spot, then they get out of the car, then into the gym hall when the party is happening. Chris is deep in her explanation of a jump from a waterfall she did on a trip to Brazil when they fetch their tag names and put it on their chests. It’s as if they’ve never been separated from each other, and Lara Jean soon forgets to be anxious about the reunion, about the people she doesn’t want to see and those she will have to be polite to.

That’s when Lucas finds them, one hand around each girl’s shoulders. New York did him good – now fully out and fully in love with a guy he’s planning to married, working for a fashion magazine and delightfully happy despite the ridiculous rent of his flat in Brooklyn. Lara Jean visits him at least twice a year, so they can go to Dominique Ansel and watch a Broadway show and simply enjoy each other’s company. Of all the people from high school, he’s the one she sees the most, ironically. She never expected it to go that way, but life is just that funny sometimes.

“How are my two favourite girls?” he asks them as he not-so-subtly drags them toward a table in a corner. “Chris, is that a new tattoo?”

Chris preens to her heart’s desire as she shows him the ink on her forearm and throws herself into a tale of tattoo parlours, miscommunications in Spanish, and the best night of her life. Which surprisingly didn’t involve anything raunchy, further proof that Chris no longer is that sixteen-year-old kid climbing up Lara Jean’s window.

“And what about you, babe?” Lucas asks, nudging her a little. “Your Instagram looks amazing, by the way.

“Isn’t it just?” Chris adds, which brings a blush to Lara Jean’s cheeks.

She might be humble-bragging, when she says she isn’t doing that bad for herself. The little bakery she opened in Charlottesville is popular enough that she had to hire a baker last year for everything bread and to help her with clients, and she’s working on finding a pastry chef anytime soon. A master of cakes Lara Jean is, but eclairs and croissants still elude her. It will do her business some good, to branch out a little. And to allow her to spend more time on wedding cakes.

Those same wedding cakes that are getting traction on her Instagram account, with way more followers than Lara Jean would have ever expected for such a small bakery. Never underestimate the powers of social media, or so it seems.

She says so to Chris and Lucas, trying not to sound too proud or too bragging about it. Truth is, she is doing great, but it’s still not enough to clear her college loan or to help daddy with Kitty’s. At least she can pay rent for her own place, instead of sharing with people she barely knows, which is more than she had hoped before reaching thirty.

“You’re making my wedding cake,” Lucas decides all of a sudden. “One of those rainbow cakes, with lots of frosting.”

“You need to propose first before thinking about a wedding.”

“Psh, I know Bryan will say yes. I need to find the ring first, that’s the worst part. I need something stylish but nice, not too pricey and…”

“Have you checked Mrs Kavinsky’s shop?” Lara Jean finds herself asking without thinking. “She has a lot of vintage jewelry.”

It’s only when Chris and Lucas stare at her silently that Lara Jean thinks back on what she just said, her fingers tingling with the need to grab the necklace that hasn’t been around her neck in a very long while. It’s carefully wrapped at the back of her jewelry box in her childhood bedroom, so it will stay safe and Kitty can’t find it if she snoops around. So it’s safe, but she doesn’t have to look at it every time she picks a necklace to wear.

“I will have a look tomorrow,” Lucas manages to say after a few more seconds of awkward silence. “My plane isn’t until Monday anyay so I have time to shop around.”

“Oooooh, can I come with you?”

Lara Jean squints her eyes at Chris. Mrs Kavinsky never was a fan of Chris – even less so that she was a fan of Lara Jean keeping her son from greatness – and vocal about it. For Chris to want to parade around her shop only means one thing; she wants to show the woman how much she changed, and that you should never judge a book by its cover. Or, more accurately, a saga by its first book.

Lara Jean wonders how upset Chris would get, if she were to point out Chris is a walking cliché for using this high school reunion just to prove a point to so many people. She who didn’t give a flying fudge about her reputation back in the day. The answer is something along the lines of ‘very upset’ and so Lara Jean settles on a smile and a sip of her drink as Lucas argues about the merits of rose gold over plain gold and silver.

They’re debating about the right size of a diamond, Lara Jean about to chime in with an opinion of her own, when a loud “Hey, Largie!” startles her out of the conversation.

Greg stands a feet feet away from their table, waking toward her with determination, a grin on his face. Lara Jean glances at her friends before she stands up and meets him halfway in a hug. Greg was one of those people she lost contact with fairly quickly – they didn’t have all that much in common, despite all the parties and lunches spent together – but it doesn’t mean she isn’t happy to see him again. He was always there to brighten their school days with his crazy ideas and never ending optimism, after all. 

“How you doing, girly girl?” he asks as he steps away from the hug. He doesn’t really wait for her answer before he grabs her hand and his eyes move to Chris and Lucas. “Don’t mind me, borrowing her for a second.”

Lara Jean doesn’t have room to complain as he drags her across the hall and toward a table where all her old lunch room buddies are gathered. She recognises many faces, even if names take a few seconds to come back to her, as she gets pulled into hugs after hugs, with so many comments about her cooking and her snacks and everything. 

Truth be told, it’s overwhelming. Most of her college friends were the quiet type, just like her, and then adulthood made her life too busy to hang out with them. She’s unlearned how to behave around so many people who, for all purposes and intends, were not really her scene. She was, after all, only friends with them because –

“Hey, Covey.”

Even after all those years, his voice brings a shiver down her spine and she has to close her eyes to keep herself together. She doesn’t turn around immediately, for there is something familiar and comforting about the warmth of his body at her back, the tingling feeling of his breath against her ear. She closes her eyes and she’s seventeen again, standing at her locker while he kisses her neck good morning. 

“Hi, Peter K,” she replies after she’s certain she has her entire body in check, turning to face him at last. 

He looks good, but that was a given. Peter has always looked good to her, and anyone else attracted by men, even when puberty made his limbs slightly too long for the rest of his body. Still, there is something to be said about the broadness of his shoulders now, filling his shirt in a way it didn’t before. 

His hair is longer too, dark and curly as it falls on his forehead, and he sports a nice five-o’clock shadow on his jaw. Lara Jean knows through Instagram that he teaches PE at a local school now, coaching the Lacrosse team after school. She wonders how many teenagers are in love with him. Lots, most likely. 

She remembers being twelve with a crush. She remembers being sixteen and in love for the first time. She remembers too much, everything coming back to her in waves as Peter smiles at her. His nose wrinkles a little, and it’s the worst. 

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he tells her, and smirks a little. “Charlottesville is, what? A twenty-minute drive? Didn’t think you’d handle it.”

“Ah ah,” she replies flatly. A pause. “Kitty picked me up.”

His laugh hasn’t changed, deep and throaty. His head tilts back a little, exposing his neck to her. There was a time where that was her favourite place to kiss him – he’d taught her how to brand hickeys into his skin in a way that would make them last a few days. He loved it, to walk around his campus with proofs that he was taken all over his throat and collarbones. She loved it, that he was so proud of their relationship. 

“Want a drink?” he asks next. 

She’s never been able to say no to Peter Kavinsky. 

Which is how they soon enough find a table to the side where to sit, just the two of them. Some people come by to say hi, mostly to him, but they know not to linger or to stay away. Peter-and-Lara-Jean was an institution in itself for their high school year, even more so than Peter-and-Gen had been. Nobody wants to come in between them, not after everything. Not when they’re side by side again. 

The breakup had been inevitable, but sometimes Lara Jean wonders if it would have been easier if it had been a little less peaceful. Peter was busy with classes and Lacrosse and his ever-growing popularity. He’d been invited to rush for a fraternity, and that took even more time out of his already busy schedule. And Lara Jean had the Korean association, on top of classes and a part-time job at a local bakery. 

The three-and-a-half-hour drive between both campus soon became a problem. They tried, for as long as they could. They tried so hard, until exhaustion took over, until final exams kicked their asses, until Peter lost an important match after coming back from her dorm room too late. They were too stubborn and too in love to admit defeat, until they had no other choice. Until they had to agree long distance just wasn’t working for them. 

Perhaps breaking each other’s heart would have made it easier for Lara Jean to move on from him. To forget that he was her first in so many ways – kiss and love and time, first boy to spend the night, first text in the morning. If he’d broken her heart, she could have learnt to not love him anymore. 

But this, just… slipping away from each other, this had been the worst. Still is, if Lara Jean is honest with herself. 

And here he is again, Peter K with the soft eyes and even softer smiles. Peter K who makes her heart miss a beat when his fingers brush hers. Peter K. Her Peter. 

A buzzing in Lara Jean’s pocket startles her, before she grabs her phone. It’s a text from Chris, all the way from across the hall.

_ Gen just saw you two and she looks HELLA PISSED this is the best I love everything about this _

A snort of laughter escapes her, to which Peter raises a confused eyebrow. She hesitates, just for a moment, before turning the screen for him to read. Both his eyebrows shoot up, before he chuckles and shakes his head. 

“Gotta give it to her, she doesn’t give up easy.”

No, that she doesn’t. Old fears, the kind Lara Jean thought dead and long gone, come back to gnaw at her, he throat dry and closing around a painful swallow. “You could go and say hi,” she somewhat manages to say. She has no idea how. 

“Why would I do that?” Peter asks back, in that confused yet peacocky way of his. The one with the underlying  _ you’re so smart but so dense sometimes _ that has plagued her teenage years. “I’m fine where I am.”

The gnawing feeling doesn’t entirely goes away, but it calms down a little bit. Just enough for her to breathe properly again. That is, until Peter stands up all of a sudden. So that’s what it feels like, to be sixteen all over again and to believe the boy you love will pick someone else over you. She hadn’t missed that. 

“Changed your mind?” she asks, too lightly. 

“Yeah,” he grins. “Dance with me.”

That’s – not what she expected. But here he is, grinning down at her and holding his hand out and looking so damn eager. Like a puppy. A sexy, grownup puppy. 

“Come on, Covey. Half those people came here to stalk us. Might as well give them a show they’ll remember.”

“So glad to see your narcissism hasn’t disappeared with the years.”

His smile is dazzling as he grabs her hand and pulls her toward the dance floor where a few couples are already swinging to songs she hasn’t heard in years. Lara Jean rolls her eyes when Peter’s hands land on her waist and pull her ridiculously close to him, but she plays along and wraps her arms around his neck anyway. 

She can give him this one night to show off. 

He’s always been a good dancer anyway. 

“Remember prom night?”

She does, of course. How could she not. “Which part exactly? The dancing, my birthday afterwards…”

“Me being prom king.”

“Your inflated ego.”

“How much we loved each other.” His eyes are too much, too intense and knowing, reading her soul like his favourite book. So she leans her forehead against his collarbone and wills her heart to stop racing.

“Yes, Peter, I remember.”

One of his hands move slightly lower while the other travels up, brushing again each and every vertebrae on her spine before he grabs her neck. Fingers in her hair, and lips so close to her ear it should be illegal. 

“Let’s get out of here, Covey.”

She wants to laugh at the stupid line he’s offering her, but she doesn’t truth her voice around him anymore. Or her legs, turned to jelly. Or her heart. God knows what he will do with it this time. 

Still, she nods. Still, Peter keeps her close even as he leads her away from the dance floor and toward the exit doors. She thinks she hears Greg catcalling them. Or perhaps it’s Chris. It’s doesn’t really matter. 

The drive to her house is silent, but not the bad kind. Peter never lets go of her hand, not even when he parks in front of the house, not even when he seems to hesitate. She tugs on it, just once, a reassurance and an agreement all at once. 

So he follows her out of the car, and jogs around it until he can wrap his arms around her waist from behind, his nose in her neck. He doesn’t let go even when they climb the few steps leading to the front door, even when she struggles to find her keys in her bag. 

“Be quiet,” she tells him between two breathless giggles. “My family’s sleeping.”

“You’re the one making all the noise, Covey.” He rubs his nose against her neck, purposefully, and she breaks into another fit of giggles as she pulls him along and inside. “See? All you.”

“I hate y–”

“Well if it isn’t Peter Kavinsky.”

They both freeze, before Peter has the good idea to let go of her. Trina appears from the kitchen, wrapped in her nightgown, a glass of water in hand and a Cheshire Cat grin on her lips. Her eyes move between the two of them with glee, like she can’t believe she finally managed to catch one of her girls sneaking a boy in. 

“‘Evening, Mrs C,” Peter beams, ever the poster child for politeness and good manners. “Hope you don’t mind me staying a bit.”

Trina’s eyes finally settle on Lara Jean, whose cheeks turn red immediately. Peter sneaked by her window in the middle of the night more times than she can count, and entered through the front door even more times. And she’s an adult, for crying out loud! She shouldn’t be ashamed of bringing a guy home. But, still. Blushing. Embarrassment. 

“Your father owns us all twenty bucks,” is all her step-mother says. Lara Jean’s jaw drops to the floor. “Have a nice evening, the two of you.”

They wait until she disappeared up the stairs before Peter hugs her again, his face pressed against her neck to hide his laugher. Lara Jean is too mortified to push him away or scold him, but he thankfully calms down on his own after a few minutes. 

“Your bedroom?” he asks softly. Hesitantly. 

“Isn’t your mother going to be worried if you don’t come back home?”

He spins her in his arm so she faces him again, one hand cupping her cheek. His thumb brushes against the corner of her mouth as he smirks. “Oh my, Lara Jean. Planning on keeping me busy all night long?”

The blushing is back full force, and she even manages to slap his shoulder this time. It only makes him laugh some more. “In your dreams!”

She is already halfway up the stairs when he follows her. Lara Jean isn't sure if she imagines the way he whispers “You have no idea” under his breath. 

Obviously nothing happens, not in that sense anyway – and not just because of the not-when-Kitty-is-home rule they still both abide to. Instead, Peter sits cross-legged at the foot of her bed, hugging a teddy bear to his chest, and whispering to her. He tells her about his last years of college, his first years of teaching. The sport club he coaches on the weekend. His pupils’ shenanigans. 

She tells him about the bakery. Going back to Korea once a year. Margot in London and Kitty doing her Master in Women’s Studies. The crazy brides ordering crazier cakes and being impossible to work with. 

She tells him about the baking contest she wants to enter. He regals her with tales of his elderly neighbours. She admits she hasn’t dated anyone since college. He said he tried, just the once, but gave up halfway through the first date cause it was not working. 

She sits with her back against her bed’s head, and he finds his way by her side, head on her stomach, her fingers in his hair. It would be so easy, to just fall asleep like this, with the warmth of him by her side. Easier still to wake up in his arms. But this moment feel special in ways she can’t put into words, and they are too busy catching up, filling the gaps left by years of absence, to care about something as trivial as sleep. 

“Do you still have your yearbook?” he asks all of a sudden. 

It’s closer to morning than night at this point, the light slowly brighter through her curtains, the birds on the tree by her window chirping away every so often. Everything is slow. Quiet. Peter’s lids are heavy, his smiles lazy, his hair a mess. He’s so beautiful and it takes her breath away. 

“Of course,” she replies in a whisper. 

She stands slowly, working the kinks in her shoulders and the buzzing feeling in her legs as she makes her way toward her cupboard. Her yearbook is there on the top shelf, under her teal hat box and next to the shoes she wore to prom. If she looks to her right, she will find her prom dress, carefully wrapped as to not get stained and dusty. 

She only grabs the book, hugging it to her chest as she makes her way back to bed. Back to Peter. 

He takes the book from her, and flops on his stomach to open it on the bed in front of him. Lara Jean mirrors his position, the entire side of her body flushed against his. His leg finds hers in the air, feet locking at the shins. She smiles. 

She expects him to go straight to the jugular by opening the book to the last page, but he surprises her with the way he just flicks through the pages. A little journey down memory lane for him it is, apparently. So Lara Jean settles back at his side and comments on this or that picture as memories come back to her too. She isn’t in any of those pictures, of course, but she knows people who are. And, quite obviously, Peter features on more than one of those, if only because he was Prom King and Captain of the Lacrosse team that year. 

An entire page is dedicated to the team, with one picture of him in the middle of a match, stick in his hands and determination in his eyes. It was the last match of the season, a few weeks before Prom, and the whole school had gone crazy for the team. Lara Jean remembers screaming until her throat was sore, Peter’s number painted on her cheeks and printed on her back.

“Look at that baby face,” she cooes, one finger brushing against the glossy paper. “All peach fuzz and all.”

Peter’s shoulder bumps against hers. “Are you making fun of me, Covey?”

“I would never!” she replies in what is supposed to be an offended manner, but only ends up in a small laugh. Still, her hand reaches out to his face, thumb and forefinger cupping his chin. His beard is rough under her fingers, not entirely unpleasant. “I actually quite like it.”

“And I quite like…”

He doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn’t need too, the intensity in his eyes enough for Lara Jean to fill in the blanks for him. All the events of tonight have been leading to this, after all, as if they were both holding their breaths for hours and seeing where things were going. As if they could go any other way, as if neither of them wanted anything else out of this reunion.

Lara Jean’s fingers tighten their hold on Peter’s chin, her eyes dropping to his lips. He swallows, hard, visible. Her heart leaps in her throat, beating so furiously she might actually throw up, or faint, or both. 

“Remember the contract?” he asks her in such a soft whisper. It’s close and intimate, only for her. “I mean, it didn’t matter much after… stuff, but. There’s one cause I never broke. You know. Peter will love Lara Jean…”

“With all his heart…”

“Always,” he finishes. A pause. “I’m going to kiss you know.”

And boy, he does.

 

…

 

She doesn’t remember falling asleep but when she wakes up, the sun is high in the sky and the other half of her bed is empty. Lara Jean is so disoriented from waking up with her head at the foot of her bed that she doesn’t even think to panic for long seconds. And before dread can even set in, her fingers brush against a piece of paper, carefully placed by her side.

It’s folded in two, her name scribbled next to a hastily-drawn heart, the familiarity of it making her own heart beat faster. She opens the note delicately, like it’s something precious, something to keep forever.

_ Had to run an errand for mom. Will be back early evening. _

_ Restaurant at 8pm? Wear the black dress, the one with the boobs and the legs. _

It’s not signed, it doesn’t need to be. She doesn’t need his name on a piece of paper for the smile that stretches on her lips, for the warm feeling all over her body and the sense of peace in her mind. Like a puzzle piece put in place, when she didn’t even know she was missing it. Like finally coming home, and everything makes sense.

Yes, she decides. 

With all her heart, always.


End file.
